dhavaldesai:
Let me make few things clear first. My wife is a German citizen of German ancestry and I hold an Indian citizenship. We are in a relationship for over 10 years and we lived together during 6 of them. These things might have played their parts in our visa process so kindly keep that in mind before comparing your case to ours.
21st February : My wife and I went to German Consulate General in Mumbai and applied for my spouse visa. We were asked the usual questions about how we had met and how long we had known each other and some history of our relationship. The visa officer wrote everything down. We carried all the pics and albums but she didn’t ask for any of it.
4th March : After waiting for 2 weeks, I called the Consulate in Mumbai to inquire about the amount I’d have to pay for the verification of the marriage certificate. I was told that they hadn’t received any word from Germany.
7th March : I got an email from the Consulate informing that I’d have to cough up Rs 45000/- for the verification. Pretty hefty sum if you ask me but I guess there wasn’t much we could do about it.
11th March : I sent the DD of the asked amount thru Blue Dart.
14th March : I called up the Consulate to ask about the receipt of the payment I made. I was informed that they had received the draft but due to some glitch in their servers, the payment receipt might need couple of days more.
18th March : I received an email from the Consulate containing the receipt of the payment.
27 March : My wife got a call from ABH in Köln asking her to write a letter how we met and our history of last 10 years. She was informed that she could send this letter by post to ABH.
28th March : I got a call from the Consulate asking me to come there for an interview. I was little surprised but again, nothing much I could do about it.
2nd April : I went to the Consulate for the interview carrying about 3 kgs worth of pics and albums and 2 kgs of documents. Again, they didn’t ask for any pics. I had to write a letter explaining how my wife and I met and the complete history. I was a little pissed off after hearing this. I had to travel 200 Kms carrying 5 kgs of papers to write this letter while a German citizen could send the same letter in post. Just out of spite, I wrote a 5 pages long letter. After I came out of the Consulate, I called my wife to tell her what had happened. Right after our conversation, she called the officer in ABH who was handling our case to inquire about the letter she wrote. Well, believe it or not, the officer in ABH was reading the letter I wrote in Mumbai when my wife called him. Pretty damn fast if you ask me !!
4th April : The ABH officer wrote an email to my wife confirming that she had received her letter in post.
22nd April : I got a call at 11 in the morning from an investigator notifying me that he’d visit that day and asking me to be home after 3 pm. Well, naturally I was at work when I got this call so I had to take an emergency leave and be home before 3 pm. No sign of him till 7 pm so I called him up. Well, he got lost and embarked a wrong train. I told him to get off at a nearby station and drove 55 km to pick him up and bring me to my home. We reached my home at 9 pm. He was done with his ‘investigations’ at 11. I drove him to local railway station and sent him on his way to Ahmedabad where he had another appointment, most probably with the lady “Mairali”.
3rd May : I called the Consulate inquiring if they had received the report from the investigator. They hadn’t.
10th May : I called the Consulate once more and I was informed that they had gotten the report from the investigator and had forwarded it to ABH in Germany.
13th May : My wife called ABH and was told that they hadn’t received anything from the Consulate.
16th May: I called the Consulate and was told the same thing that they had forwarded the report to ABH.
21st May : My wife called ABH and they were still waiting for the report.
24th May : My wife called the ABH and they still had nothing from the Consulate. The ABH office told her that she’d try to call the Consulate and inquire about the report.
28th May: I called the Consulate and told them about ABH. The consulate lady put me on hold to discuss my case with some higher officer. Finally she informed me that the visa officer at the Consulate had sent the report on 27th May. I asked if I could have the tracking number of the shipment and was informed that the report had been sent electronically.
29th May: My wife got an email from ABH officer confirming the delivery of the report. The ABH officer was nice enough to inform that she had wrote her reply back to the Consulate as well.
31st May : I got a call from the Consulate at 1 pm informing that the spouse visa was approved.
5th June : I went to the Consulate for the stamping. I needed a verified copy of my marriage certificate from the consulate section in order to register our marriage in Germany with local Standesamt. I got the verified copy in less than 30 min from the consulate section. I’d like to go on the record and say that the people working at the consulate section are pretty friendly and can definitely give some pointers to the people at the visa section about conducting their business with the people.
Total Time : 14 Weeks. I guess it's not that bad.
Well, I sincerely hope few of us find this info useful !!
Good Luck !!
Hi dhaval,
Yes you are right. The visa officer came by train only and yes came to my home at 6.30 am in the morning on 23rd april. Where do you live?
I too paid the same amount. I had also applied at the Mumbai Consulate. The lady handling my verification was also pretty friendly. I applied on 14th February and received my approval on 15th May.
Mairali
Mairali